Frequently asked.

A home screen, or launcher, for TVs running Android TV or Google TV. It replaces the stock home screen, with its rows of ads and recommendations, with your apps, the weather and air quality, and a countdown to festivals and family birthdays. It's free, open source and collects no data.

It replaces the screen they're on. With Aangan as your home screen, you see your apps and nothing promoted. Apps themselves, such as streaming services, still show whatever they show inside them.

It should work on any TV or streaming box with Android TV or Google TV 9 (Pie) or later: Sony Bravia, TCL, Hisense, Philips, Sharp, Xiaomi Mi TV and Mi Box, Chromecast with Google TV, Nvidia Shield and others. It's developed on Sony Bravia TVs (Android TV 9 and Google TV 12), and each release is also checked on Google's emulators for Android TV 13, Google TV 14 and Google TV 16, the newest. It doesn't run on Samsung (Tizen), LG (webOS), Roku or Fire TV; here's why.

Recent Google TV devices only offer Google's own Ambient mode and don't let you choose another screensaver, so Aangan leaves the option out of Settings there. On TVs that do let you choose, pick Aangan clock.

Samsung's smart TVs don't run Android. They run Samsung's own system, Tizen, and it doesn't allow this kind of customisation:

• No Android apps. Tizen apps are web or .NET apps written specifically for Tizen, so Aangan, like any Android app, can't be installed.
• The home screen belongs to Samsung. Smart Hub, the bar of apps and Samsung TV Plus recommendations, is part of the system. Tizen has no setting to choose a different home screen and no way for an app to become one.
• So does the Home button. Tizen apps can ask for some remote keys, such as the coloured and media buttons, but the Home button goes to the TV itself. There's no equivalent of the Android feature Aangan uses to answer it.
• No easy installs. Apps from outside Samsung's store need the TV's developer mode, a computer with Samsung's developer tools and a signing certificate, and they can't replace anything that ships with the TV.

LG's webOS and Roku are closed in the same way. Amazon's Fire TV is built on Android, but Amazon has blocked other home screens since a 2022 update.

What you can do: plug a Google TV or Android TV streamer, such as Google TV Streamer, Chromecast with Google TV or Xiaomi TV Box, into the Samsung's HDMI port, and install Aangan on that. Turn on Anynet+ (HDMI-CEC) in the TV's settings so one remote controls both, and the streamer becomes your home screen. More on the install page.

No. Install it with the free Downloader app, and use the welcome's Open with Home to make the Home button bring it up. See how.

Most TVs offer no setting to choose a different home screen. The accessibility service is the only way, without a computer, for an app to answer the Home button. Aangan's service watches the Home key and the moment the TV's own home screen appears, and does nothing else: other buttons pass straight through, and it can't read anything on screen. It's optional; the privacy policy has the details.

No. Aangan is about 150 KB, has no libraries, and on an ordinary day nothing on its screen moves, so it uses no processor time while it sits there or while you watch something else. The weather is fetched only while the home screen is showing, at most every 30 minutes.

Yes, on your home Wi-Fi. Browsers warn about any page that doesn't use HTTPS. The setup page is served by the TV itself, and a device on a home network can't get an HTTPS certificate without routing through a cloud service, which Aangan avoids on purpose. Choose to continue; most browsers then remember that choice for the TV's address. The page and what you type never leave your network, and the page stops the moment you leave Settings on the TV.

Make sure the phone is on the same Wi-Fi as the TV, not on mobile data or a guest network. Keep Aangan's Settings open on the TV while you use the page. Some routers isolate devices from each other; if so, add the dates on the TV instead.

It doesn't need to. You choose your city once, and Aangan has no permission to find out where the TV is. The forecast request sends your city's coordinates rounded to about a kilometre.

Only on the TV, in Aangan's private storage, which is excluded from cloud backup. There's no account and no copy anywhere else. Uninstalling Aangan deletes them.

Move it. In Settings or on the phone page, choose the festival and change its date, or hide it for the year. See how.

Not in the app yet. Suggest it on GitHub, or add it to the calendar file yourself; it's one line. Meanwhile, you can add any yearly day as an anniversary.

Hold OK on the app and choose Put in the dock or Hide. You can also set the dock in Settings, or from your phone. Hidden apps come back from the Settings tile's menu. More in the guide.

No. If it ever crashes, it keeps a short note on the TV (the app and Android versions, the TV model, and where in the code it failed) and Settings says so. To report it, open the phone page: it shows the whole note, and a link opens a GitHub issue with the note filled in, for you to read and send yourself. Or delete it. Nothing leaves the TV unless you send it.

Uninstall Aangan from Settings → Apps, or switch off its Home-button service in the accessibility settings. Aangan doesn't change or disable anything on your TV, so the stock home screen is exactly as you left it.

It's being prepared for Google Play. Until then, install it with Downloader. Both are signed with the same key, so you'll be able to switch without losing anything.

It's made by Vaari as an open-source project, originally for a family's own TVs. It costs nothing to run because there are no servers: your TV does all the work. There's nothing to sell, including your data.

Every release is built from the public source and signed with the same key, whose fingerprint is on the install page. Android refuses an update signed with any other key, so a tampered copy can't replace yours.

Report problems and suggest festivals on GitHub, try it on a TV we haven't, or send a pull request. The developer guide is the place to start.